Another visit from the alpaca photographer

I (Rolf) met Per Sundby in a project we were part of in Oslo. He is a good photographer and immediately jumped at the chance when I asked him if he wanted to take some pictures of our alpacas. We needed some allround pictures of the alpacas, such as body and behaviour, but also some pictures for documentation of fleece quality, for instance. Yesterday, Sunday, he was here to take some more fleece shots. He is starting to get used to the alpacas now and they have trust in him, so the photo shoot went smooth and without any problems.

Halter training and visit from alpaca interested people

We had a visit from the north of Norway today. Very nice couple with a sweet little girl, who wanted to see our alpacas and talk alpaca. We always enjoy talking about alpacas!Right before they came we got the last infrared surveillance camera up, and we started halter training the alpacas in wait for the visitors. A flight was late, so we had a little extra time. Our son and his friend got to walk with Misty Blue and Viella. It was Viellas second halter session and she starts to look like a pro! By watching her best friend Misty she walked nicely beside the boys. Beachcomber had her first session ever, which the visitors got to see, and improved immensely throughout the session. At the end she looked like a show winner!We hope the visitors got what they wanted. They got to both see and feel the alpaca girls and –boys, and we had a long talk about alpacas in general. We are hard to stop when we have started talking about our favourite subject, alpacas. Let’s hope we didn’t talk too much! Their little girl didn’t want to leave without at least one cat and an alpaca teddy, and that’s got to be a good sign ;-)We ended their visit with a short stop at our three girls in “exile” at a nearby farmer. The retired couple who lives there could tell us our alpacas had a moose visiting yesterday, which they found very interesting.

Value over time and why you should buy good alpacas

We have just published a new article on our website called “Value over time and why you should buy good animals”. We are sometimes asked of the alpaca value and if the price compares to the value. Especially if you are new in the business it can be quite overwhelming with all the information, and it is not easy to choose. We therefore encourage people to think long term at the very start.

The article is inspired by Don Marquette at The AlpacaRosa in the USA.

Read the article by clicking on the image of our Andamooka Juanita above. Norwegian only, though.

A couple of alpaca movies

A neighbour contacted us and wanted to record our alpacas on video. We don’t mind at all and she came over yesterday to shoot both boys and girls. The result is a couple of movies we have published on our webpage, Facebook and YouTube. You can see the movies above!

Respect for the alpaca wins you respect back

Our macho Corazon have been in many shows, won lots of prizes, and is used to people. He is also very intelligent and we think he expects a certain degree of respect. We treat all our alpacas with respect, and have done so even before we learned about Camelidynamics, og would rather use more time than stress up the animals. We notice the effect of this when we work with Corazon, and have a relationship of respect with an amazing alpaca. Today, my wife wanted to halter him and do a “walk around the show ring”. Corazon didn’t really want the halter on, but some soothing massage soon won him over for Nina, and after that he was patient when she adjusted the halter. Then she could check him over like a judge would, while he waited.

Then she took Corazon into the paddock for a walk, and he truly strutted with pride. Pride for himself, we assume, but we are very proud of him too. Straight, nice body. Ears up. Watching the audience. It will be very exciting to see him enter the show ring again!

The first snowfall for the Australian alpacas

We had some sleet fall a few days ago, but today we had the first real snow of the winter. The Australian alpacas have never seen snow before and their first experience was one of wonder and confusion at first, before they started jumping around and rolling in the snow! Too bad we didn’t have the video camera with us! Not too much snow so far, just 5-7cm, but the weather forecast says it will snow all week. We were thinking about taking pictures of the alpacas in the snow, but when wife started shuffling out new hay the alpacas came rushing in!

Our old girls have no problems with the snow as we checked them today. They experienced last winter, when we had lots and lots of snow.